Why is FDA so slow on food recalls?

The Food and Drug Administration takes an average of 57 days to remove contaminated food from the shelves, according to a report by federal investigators. Veuer's Elizabeth Keatinge (@elizkeatinge) has more.
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New report shows it can take up to 10 months to pull unsafe products off grocery shelves: Our view

Soon after the Food and Drug Administration discovered salmonella in a plant that made nut butters in 2014, several illnesses were linked to the product. But it took more than five months before the tainted food — which caused 14 illnesses in 11 states — was recalled that August.

Nor did the FDA consider using its mandatory recall authority until 161 days after the discovery. Four days later, nSpired Natural Foods voluntarily pulled the product.

That case is one of 30 food recalls from 2012 to 2015 analyzed by the Health and Human Services Department’s inspector general. In a recently released report, the IG found that it can take as long as 10 months to pull unsafe products from store shelves. Leading up to one of those recalls — in which the manufacturer knowingly distributed tainted cheese products — an infant's death and two fetal losses were linked to the contaminated food.

Tainted foods are like ticking time bombs. The problem is more significant and widespread than many people realize. Food-borne illnesses sicken as many as 47.8 million Americans each year, according to estimates by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. While most of those illnesses are mild and are seldom reported to authorities, an estimated 128,000 people are hospitalized and about 3,000 die as a result of contaminated food.

The FDA is the public’s last line of defense against such outcomes, yet the IG found several deficiencies in the agency's recall process. In some cases, the FDA was slow to evaluate health hazards. In all 30 cases, after the FDA became aware of the problem, “it did not prescribe a timeline for each firm to initiate a recall.”

Establishing deadlines could move businesses to faster action, as could the threat of a mandatory recall.

Before a new food safety law was enacted in 2011, the FDA did not have the authority to mandate a recall. It could pressure businesses, but it had to rely on their voluntary action. However, as of August 2016, the FDA had used this important tool just twice.

The FDA also has failed, except on rare occasions, to use another valuable tool: making public the names of stores, restaurants, schools or other places where tainted food was available. The FDA points to a law stating such lists are confidential commercial information and asserts that in some cases, the information might not be needed to ensure public health. But the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which handles meat recalls, regularly releases that information for tainted meat.

And there should be no dispute that publicizing these locations will help people avoid contaminated foods and/or know that they or their children might have consumed it.

This misses the point. Even one recall that takes months after contamination is suspected is one too many, particularly where the problem can kill or cause serious illness, which was true in 23 of the cases the IG analyzed.

FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb says the FDA has taken major actions to improve its recall process, adding that “we still have more work to do.” That’s encouraging.

When companies fail to police themselves, refuse to act quickly, go to court to battle the FDA or even, as in one of the 30 cases, purposely distribute a tainted product, slow FDA action is dangerous and even deadly.

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